CAREER RESULTS  CAREER SUMMARY  NEWS   FEATURE ARTICLE  GRAND SLAM RECORD  TITLES  STATISTICS   TRIVIA  QUOTES  ARCHIVES  LINKS   DAILY NOTES  INDEX  UPDATE    GALLERY

1999 ARTICLES

Giving Pete his props    Fresh off vacation, Sampras romps   Sampras enjoys respite on golf course   Pete Sampras: All-Around Ace   Silent Sampras as strong as ever   Avenging Sampras shows who is really no.1 Finishing Sampras-style

From the moment Michael Jordan announced his retirement last week and left the NBA with a public relations nightmare in his wake, a debate has raged among sports fans over His Airness's place in the pantheon of sports greats. Granted, most of the rage originated mainly form irate hockey fans who have flooded sports-talk radio switchboards with screeds about Wayne Gretzky. But the question remains an intriguing one.

It becomes even more intriguing when it is considered that there is one athlete currently at the top of his sport whose name has yet to be mentioned as belonging in the same sentence as Jordan: not Ruth, not Ali, not Gretzky, not DiMaggio, not Nicklaus.

Ladies and gentlemen, meet Pete Sampras.

Now that the guffaws have died down, take a moment to consider the facts, which, if molded and twisted and stretched to fit a columnist's premise, can lead one to the inescapable conclusion that ... they're not as far apart as you think.

Some of the disparity can be trace to image, where Sampras' problem is two-fold. One, since he plays an individual sport and thus can never be the object of solemn-toned pronouncements about "carrying the team on his back" or "making the players around him better." Two, he is about as exciting off the court as vanilla pudding.

It is the rest of what defines these two athletes that bears examination. To make things easier, we've divided the comparison into categories, which are completely arbitrary, naturally. As always, the opinions expressed here are not necessarily those of FOX Sports Online, News Corporation or anyone with even a modicum of common sense.

ACCOMPLISHMENTS
Jordan: won six NBA championships in the last eight years, missing out in '94 and '95 during self-imposed exile in baseball's minor leagues.
Sampras: finished No.1 the last six years in succession, breaking the record held by Jimmy Connors.
Edge: Sampras.

INTESTINAL FORTITUDE
Jordan: scored 38 points in '97 NBA Finals while suffering from the flu.
Sampras: beat Alex Corretja in the '96 U.S. Open quarterfinals after vomiting on court during climactic fifth set.
Edge: Sampras.

ROAD-TESTED
Jordan: NBA's grinding, eight-month season sends him to exotic outposts like Milwaukee, Salt Lake City and Vancouver.
Sampras: 11-month season gives him opportunity to steal towels from hotels on all seven continents.
Edge: Sampras.

PUNCHING THE CLOCK
Jordan: plays about 45 minutes per game, and never plays more than two games on successive days.
Sampras: matches last between one and four hours; winning a one-week tournament can require playing four days in a row.
Edge: Sampras.

PROPS
Jordan: referees look the other way when he takes the extra step or two en route to the basket.
Sampras: linesman gave Patrick Rafter a questionable ace on match point against Sampras in Cincinnati.
Edge: Sampras.

INTANGIBLES
Jordan: loses millions playing golf.
Sampras: shoots in the 80s; probably wishes Jordan would challenge him.

By my count, that makes it 6-0 Sampras. Let's hope Michael likes bagels.

FOR THE FIRST time in 74 days, Pete Sampras hit a tennis ball in anger Tuesday night.

One swift hour later, the anger was over, more or less. After the longest vacation of his professional life, Sampras walked into San
Jose Arena and made mincemeat of a Spanish guy with a goofy haircut, somebody named Galo Blanco. And then Sampras uttered
some words that should give no comfort to his peers.

``I'm fresh,'' said the tennis world's heavyweight champion. ``And when I'm fresh, I'm dangerous.''

Sampras also was still a little miffed. Not at the way he played Tuesday. But at the way he was portrayed in ESPN's recent
biographical documentary, part of the network's tribute to the top 100 North American athletes of the 20th century.

Sampras was No. 48 on the list, which made him proud. But the show was dominated by an old theme -- that Sampras is a boring guy
with more soul in his sneakers than in his personality -- and that did not make him happy.

``It's safe to say I was disappointed,'' Sampras said. ``The whole boring thing . . . we've all seen and heard that over the years. The
whole premise of it, I didn't find very flattering. I wasn't too crazy about it.''

As anyone who sits down to talk with Sampras knows, it is crazy to call him dull in terms of intellect. Maybe he doesn't show his emotions on the court as much as some of the screamers and whiners in tennis, but he does have something to say.

Lately, he finds himself defending what every American takes for granted -- an extended vacation. If that sounds odd, it is only because
tennis is the planet's most obsessively omnipresent sport. The season begins in January and runs until late November. To maintain his No. 1 ranking, Sampras must essentially become a 50-week automaton.

It all caught up to him in Europe late last year, when he played in seven of the last eight weeks of the tour to maintain his top spot on
tennis' top shelf. The effort allowed Sampras to become the first man to rank No. 1 for six consecutive years. But at the end of those eight
weeks, his brain was extra crispy toast. He made up his mind to take an extended break from the game -- even if it did include skipping the
Australian Open, one of the four Grand Slam tournaments on the schedule.

``Michael Jordan, Wayne Gretzky, the guys in the team sports, they always have three or four months off,'' he said. ``And I firmly believe
that one reason they continued to do what they could do was because they had that break every year.''

Still, some folks called Sampras nutty, selfish, foolish, whatever. Skipping one of the year's biggest events? And this guy is supposed
to be boring?

``I have no regrets,'' he said Tuesday. ``I was so mentally burned out at the end of the season. It was nice to have a normal life, to wake up in the same bed every morning, to not have any responsibilities.''

The 10-week vacation was his longest competitive break from the sport since high school. He went a full month without even picking up
a tennis racket. He took a trip to Hawaii and was delighted not to have to pack his normal bundle of tennis gear. He went snorkeling
and whale watching. But the natural question was: How much would he lose by taking the time off?

We received part of the answer Tuesday night, when Sampras looked slightly rusty, but pretty much dusted off Blanco when it was really
necessary. Sampras lost only one point on his first serve.

``It's like riding a bike,'' he said. ``You don't forget how to do it. If there's one shot I don't lose over a long span of time, it's my serve.''

Oh, yes, and that alleged non-personality? It was not on display, either. After Tuesday's match, he took the public address microphone
and announced that he ``couldn't think of a better place than San Jose'' to launch his 1999 season. If it was a blatant exaggeration and a
desperate bid for cheap applause, it worked perfectly.

No, he doesn't show much emotion on the court. But when Sampras cranks up those forehand volleys, it is enough to make a grown man
shudder. Sampras' tennis legacy is indisputable -- he is now chasing Ivan Lendl for the record of most weeks ranked No. 1 -- but when
historians look back at this era, it will be interesting to see how they judge the big picture.

If Sampras compares to any other 20th century figure, it may be Larry Holmes, a dominant boxer who had the misfortune to follow
Muhammad Ali as an undisputed champ. Holmes had a better-than-advertised personality, too, but had no chance of topping
Ali in that department. The same goes for Sampras with his more vocal American predecessors, John McEnroe and Jimmy Connors.

But boring? Please. Sampras answers the questions and explains the answers. He is not afraid to stake himself to lofty goals.

His primary one this year will be to tie Roy Emerson's career record of 12 Grand Slam titles. Sampras, 27, has 11. The other goal will be
to stay at No. 1 for as long as possible. Since he skipped Australia, it will help if he wins here.

He should. Andre Agassi and Mark Philippoussis are the only other players in the Sybase field ranked in the top 25. With one or two
more matches to ease back into form, Sampras should be in shape to beat either one in Sunday's final.

``I'm not saying I'm going to win this week,'' said the most fresh and dangerous man in tennis. ``But I feel pretty good.''

SCOTTSDALE, Ariz. - Pete Sampras guides the golf cart toward the first hole at the Scottsdale Princess Golf Course, braking to a stop at the blue tees, 366 yards from the green.

''Playing the blues?'' he said, more in the tone of a Jeopardy answer, than a question with options.

''I tell you now, I like to grip it and rip it. Of course, that's what gets me in trouble.''

He slides from behind the wheel, grabs his Orlimar 3-wood and strolls to the tee box.

Before taking his first swing, Sampras poses the question raised routinely on courses everywhere: ''Mullies (mulligans)
on the first hole, right?''

As promised, he then grips it and rips it. His ball streaks down the right side of the fairway, landing about 125 yards from the green. He rockets a second tee shot a bit farther but into the left rough.

''I'll play the first one,'' he said, with an easy smile that rarely left his face this day.

For Sampras, a golf course is a secluded haven far away from the pressure-packed existence that comes with being one of the world's most gifted athletes. Ranked No. 1 for a record six consecutive years, he is near the top of the list of tennis' all-time greats, and ESPN placed him among the top 50 athletes of the 20th century.

''I was honored at first, until I saw the ESPN piece on me,'' he said, driving up the fairway. ''Then I was disappointed, I just wasn't happy with it.''

Sampras seems relaxed and upbeat throughout our nine-hole stint. He stays calm even when his shots stray long and wide of the fairway or the green.

''Being out in the fresh air and in beautiful surroundings is therapeutic and fun,'' he said. ''But I also like to be competitive, to put a little money on it.''

I ignore the bait.

Using his Callaway sand wedge, Sampras hits an approach shot on the first hole left and long. He grimaces.

''From about 130 yards and in, I'm not too consistent with my wedges,'' he said, sliding back behind the wheel of the cart. ''My irons are pretty good; my driver is a little bit inconsistent; and my putting is not great.''

Once on the green, Sampras putts quickly without rituals and without pondering his putting line.

''I like to play fast,'' he said after sinking his third putt.

At the 416-yard No. 5, a par 4, he hooks his tee shot into the left rough. When a photographer prepares to capture him struggling for position under a tree, Sampras yells, ''Don't take me under the tree!''

My ball was in the fairway about 240 yards from the green.

''Give you $100 if you hit the green,'' said Sampras, no longer disguising his hunger for a bet. With the weight of his wallet unchanged, he drives to No. 6, a 365-yard hole, revealing some of his woes as a golf hustler.

''I can't tell you how much I've lost,'' he said. ''Nothing in the thousands, but I lost quite a bit to (Tampa Bay quarterback) Trent Dilfer one time. I just like it when something is on the match.''

Before blasting off at No. 6, we are joined by PGA Tour pro Billy Mayfair, whose velvety swings produce the only pars and birdie of the
threesome.

''His swing is so effortless,'' Sampras said, watching Mayfair's tee shot at the 190-yard, par-3 No. 7 land on the green and roll within 10 feet of the flag.

At No. 8, a 446-yard par 4, he once again seeks to lighten my pockets.

''Bet you $10 you won't hit the fairway,'' Sampras said.

Using a driver, but with a slower-than-normal swing, I smack the ball just 150 yards from the tee, but in the fairway.

''What did you do, use your putter?'' Sampras said. ''Owe you $10.''

Looking a bit miffed about losing a bet, he leaned into his tee shot on No. 8 and smoked it down the fairway, 310 yards from the tee box. Mayfair smacked his ball about 250 yards down the fairway.

''Pete's ball is way past mine,'' he said. ''He must have hit it 330, 335 yards.''

''It's gotta be at least 345, wouldn't you say?'' Sampras said.

Lending credence to the golfer's adage, ''It's not the drive, it's how you arrive,'' his approach shot found the lone bunker protecting the No. 8 green. A long drive wasted, he finished the hole with a bogey.

''I've been in a bunker on about every hole out here. You can't say I'm not giving the photographer a chance to get some interesting shots.''

Sampras' ball finds more sand on No. 9. Still, he leaves the course flashing a had-a-good-time smile - and only $10 in debt.

Though he has lived in Florida for the past few years, he recently bought a house in Beverly Hills, Calif., which makes it easier be with his family and girlfriend actress Kim Williams.

''She's (now) in London doing an NBC miniseries,'' Sampras said. ''She'll be there for quite awhile, but we're doing fine.''

He said Los Angeles also offers more social options and a chance to slug golf balls with Hollywood types.

''I played a couple times with Jack Nicholson,'' he said. ''I was in stitches the whole time. He's hysterical. He's never three-putted in his life. He just picks up and says, 'Thank you.' When you win a couple of Oscars, I guess you can do that.

''I'm not too much into the L.A. scene. I've always been a homebody. I know I'm based in Florida because it's good for my tennis and my training, but being in L.A. is good for my life.''

Sampras recently returned to the tennis tour after a two-month hiatus, his first extended break since turning pro in 1988. He plays Felix Mantilla on Wednesday in the Newsweek Champions Cup in Indian Wells, Calif.

Was the long layoff worth it?

''Definitely,'' he says. ''Last year this time, I was never eager to work on my game. Missing the Australian Open (this year) hurt my ranking. But now I'm really enjoying playing and practicing. I'm not tired from playing so many weeks in a row. As a result, I know I'm going to play well. I've given myself the best chance to have a good year. I want to be fresh. Finishing at No. 1 for a seventh straight year is one of my major goals.''

He believes extended breaks will prolong his career.

''You look at (Michael) Jordan and (Wayne) Gretzky,'' Sampras said. ''They played until they were 35 because they had lengthy offseasons. There's no offseason in tennis. That's why guys retire when they're 29, 30.''

He spent much of his free time on golf courses. At the Bob Hope Classic, a pro-am held in Bermuda Dunes, Calif., in January, he played rounds with pros Paul Azinger, David Duval, Fred Couples and Arnold Palmer.

''I had seven birdies for the four rounds,'' Sampras said. ''I hit a sand wedge within a foot-and-a-half for a tap-in birdie.

Sampras said playing with Palmer was a lesson in showmanship.

''Arnie really knows how to work the crowd,'' he said. ''Every time he walks up to the green, he gives them that smile, that wave. Then he does that little hitch.

''I've always been a big Freddie (Couples) fan because his swing is so effortless. I like his demeanor on the course, his personality. After meeting him, I realized that everything people say about him is true. He's a great guy.''

Said Couples: ''The day I played with Pete he played better than I did. He hits it a long way and has really great touch. If he spent more time...''

Tiger Woods and Jack Nicklaus are among the other pros Sampras dreams of accompanying on a fairway stroll.

''I'd love to do that, to see Tiger's length off the tee and to play with Nicklaus,'' he said. ''Actually I admire them all -- how they do it, because it's not easy.''

Sampras was drawn to golf while playing for the U.S. Junior Davis Cup team when he was 16.

''I hit a couple of good shots and was immediately hooked on it,'' he said ''I've taken a couple of lessons but didn't like it. Too technical for me. I don't want to be worrying about shoulder turns and that kind of stuff. I love to play. Every now and then I'll hit a shot the pros might hit. I just want to hit the ball.''

Contributing: Harry Blauvelt

Pete Sampras
He has won twelve majors. He gets no respect. What's wrong with this picture?

Situated in the A-list Los Angeles outpost of Ventura County, Lake Sherwood was so named after serving as a location in the original film version of Robin Hood. And from the veranda of its massive Georgian-style clubhouse, nearby Sherwood Country Club looks like a set designer's vision of the ideal moneyed playground. Santa Monica Mountains as backdrop. Sprawling oak trees and gurgling streams dominating the foreground. They even got the bird noises right.

As if on cue, Wayne Gretzky suddenly drives a golf cart into frame. "I hear Pete's going to be out here today," he calls to an assistant pro. "Tell him I want to get a beer later."

"Pete" is of course Pete Sampras, and the imagined scene of them--two of the most preternaturally mild and self-effacing superstars in sports shooting the breeze over brewskies--is a funny twist on the typical let's-do-lunch Hollywood moment. Both Sampras and Gretzky have always been more talented than they are famous, often overshadowed by lesser actors but greater hams. But put Sampras under the spotlight at Wimbledon or on his sport's biggest stage, New York's Flushing Meadows, where this fall he is poised to break Roy Emerson's record for majors victories, and he delivers a star turn.

Sampras shows up for our round right on time, alone. He sports wraparound sunglasses, but the amble is as recognizable as the Duke's. The regular-guy hair and wistful good looks recall Tom Hanks. We exchange introductions and pleasantries, and the shades come off. At the practice tee, not wanting to gawk, I just listen to his first swing. A whoosh, crisp as a winter wind through a deserted alley, is followed by a crack of absolute authority. Next time I gawk.

He displays the idiosyncrasies of the self-taught: The rounded posture and close-set feet suggest the starting position of his legendary service motion; the hands aren't so much conjoined as prescribed. Once the swing begins, however, the mechanics become music. The club flows back and through uninhibited, a fluid, wholly organic movement. Like his serve, his swing is an effortless buildup, then a seamless course reversal, followed by a furious but controlled unwinding that appears disproportionate to the winding. For the blessed few, some actions do not produce an equal and opposite reaction. It is clear that he is a natural.

Sampras offers that he has hardly touched a club in months, not since he played in the Bob Hope Chrysler Classic. The tournament gave him the red-carpet treatment. His pairings included Arnold Palmer, Fred Couples and David Duval. Sampras responded in kind, coming within inches of an ace on his one nationally televised shot.

Sampras has time today for only nine holes, but word is, he likes to have a few dollars at stake, so I am armed with a bulging wallet and the hollow confidence of a man whose editor has offered to subsidize any reasonable losses. As we pull our clubs for the first hole, a short par four, he asks my handicap. We both play to a twelve, but rather than issue the expected challenge, he offers some local knowledge: "You want to take an iron here." Sampras steps up and rips a four-iron, but pushes it out of bounds right. "Nope," he says, surfer mellow. I manage a nervous, thin three-iron in the fairway. "Good ball!" Sampras chirps, with winning if unmerited enthusiasm. He pulls out a second ball and blows a perfect draw some thirty yards past.

History has shown Sampras, winner of twelve Grand Slam titles and the world's number-one tennis player for a record six straight years and counting, to be die-on-his-sword competitive, even by the standard of champions. Though the public unravelings are said to embarrass him, his most vivid and memorable encounters, all victories, have been, in shorthand: Vomit Match (1996 U.S. Open quarterfinal, d. Alex Corretja), Crying Jag (1995 Australian Open quarterfinal, d. Jim Courier) and Violent Cramps (1995 Davis Cup final, single-handedly d. Russia).

He is different at golf, which may be why he loves the game so much. Stan Smith introduced golf to a sixteen-year-old Sampras, then his charge on the U.S. Junior Davis Cup team. "I was a hacker," Sampras recalls en route to our second shots. "I gripped the club like a baseball bat, I didn't know anything about etiquette, I didn't know what par was."

This is surprising somehow. Sampras has always seemed like a golfer in tennis togs: the deliberateness of someone who takes the long view, notably the languid walk more suited to course than court; the cocky glint of the eyes shining through the veneer of bland pleasantness; the stoic, melancholy aura.

It is therefore appropriate that Sampras mentions conduct in the same breath as results. He is the rare athlete who seems as genuinely proud of his manners as of his success. For Sampras's on-course demeanor and swing, Freddie Couples is his golfing role model, a function Sampras speaks of with unabashed reverence.

Standing over his half-wedge approach, he chuckles. "Man, I hate these in-between shots." He then takes a beautifully judged swing and drops a two-hopper six inches from the cup. A wide grin creases his famously poker face. On the green, he picks up his gimme, then knocks away my ball after a putt slides three feet past. "Good par," he says. The hole turns out to be his day in microcosm: wildness mixed with brilliance, each met with a smile; a kind word proffered whenever possible; no knee knockers.

That Sampras has detractors must strike the golf fan as inconceivable. He has won the big events--he has won them with class and he has won them with daring. And yet this champion, for whom being a "good role model for kids means more than anything people write" about him, is for some--including former twin terrors John McEnroe and Jimmy Connors--not a victim of the declining interest in men's professional tennis but a leading cause of it.

To paraphrase Martin Amis, in the world of men's tennis, the word "personality" has become synonymous with the word "asshole." By that definition, Pete Sampras has rarely exhibited much personality. He's a Fred Perry man in Nike's clothing, who rather than kick up a racket wants only to wield one better than anyone, ever. Though he says he generally feels appreciated by tennis fans and the media, he wonders how golf would have received equivalent feats.

"It's a question I ask myself a lot," Sampras says. "Is it me or is it the sport? If I was playing golf and won twelve majors and acted the way I act, and with the sense of history I have, I think I'd be a Jack Nicklaus or an Arnold Palmer. It just tells you that tennis, unfortunately, is struggling and people want to find something to talk about or write about, and the easiest thing to do is say I'm boring. That was a big thing early on in my career, and it's kind of died down a little, but that will always baffle me."

I ask Sampras if he read the Sports Illustrated profile on another "boring" superstar, David Duval, which linked the golfer's stoicism and single-mindedness to the childhood trauma of losing his older brother to leukemia. He had not, but he had heard about it.

"I know a little something about being overanalyzed," he says with a wry grin.

To wit, ESPN this year profiled Sampras as part of its "SportsCentury" list of the fifty greatest athletes of the past one hundred years. As the show proved, some people are thrust into neuroses and others have neuroses thrust upon them. With the possible exception of Rip Van Winkle, perhaps no one's sleeping habits have been dissected more thoroughly than Sampras's (e.g., enjoys lots of it, prefers total darkness, doesn't liked to be touched during). It seems unlikely that the other forty-nine athletes of the cent ury will have this indignity visited upon them during an ostensible homage to their achievements. Add to that being blamed for a la ck of both competition and the aforementioned dramatic range, and you had a tribute that was more like a roast.

"It was so disappointing," says Sampras. "I figured, okay, maybe these guys will get it right and tell you why I'm in the top fifty. But they had a bunch of writers talking about the whole 'boring' thing."

As Sampras notes, not only was the approach constricted, but it failed on its own terms, stuck with an outdated picture of the man himself. If his life has not been the public soap opera of an Andre Agassi, neither has it been without drama. "I'm not seventeen anymore," he says quietly, then pauses. "I've been through a lot."

Sadly, he has: the premature deaths of his close friends Vitas Gerulaitis and Tim Gullickson; the conviction of his former tennis mentor Pete Fischer on child-abuse charges. But his experiences have given him the perspective to put criticism in a larger context.

"There's always going to be somebody w ho isn't going to like you, who will try to knock you down. And I felt that, but you can't let it worry you. After losing Vitas and Tim--that's the worst thing in the world. You can't compare losing people to a tough article. Tim always said not to change, that I was fine the way I was. I'm not the one with the problem."

At the fifth hole, a 534-yard par five, Sampras scorches a drive close to three hundred yards on a string. "Not bad--if you like perfect," he crows. A topped fairway wood, a few good-natured expletives and a lovely mid-iron later, he is on in regulation. Left with a delicate pitch over an imposing front bunker, I ask my playing partner for advice.

"Hands forward, ball back and make sure you accelerate; that's the most important thing," he coaches. I manage to follow only the first two steps, eliciting a sympathetic groan.

On the sixth hole, without any prompting, Sampras points out the desired line for the blind opening shot. It 's a display of thoughtfulness rarely associated with the modern athlete. This is a guy with a problem?

Sampras has never made an effort to be or to seem complicated. The imperatives of greatness, as he sees them, keep his life simple. Music, movies and Lakers games fill his downtime. He unabashedly loves Caddyshack. His favorite golf story is the one about how his vigorous swing accidentally snapped the head off the beloved persimmon driver of Jerry West, Los Angeles Lakers executive vice president of basketball operations and a regular golfing buddy.

Only one subject rankles: his personal life. Asked if the much-publicized breakup of Andre Agassi and Brooke Shields made him reflect on his relationship with actress Kimberly Williams, he replies with a tense no.

Making things as simple as possible may be a requisite for the single-mindedness he has long displayed and that has served him so well professionally. "When I'm playing tennis, I'm playing . I can't focus on anything else. There's no sightseeing, there's no shopping. There's the hotel, the courts and the airport. It's not as glamorous as people think. You're there to work." When I ask about any connections between golf and tennis, he says, simply, "I don't see any similarities at all. Golf's more of a mental thing for me, an escape. You can't find a more different sport."

One could argue of course that there are many similarities between the sports: their individual nature; their mental and emotional demands; their biomechanics. They have evolved in tandem, both in terms of sociology (long-overdue moves toward inclusiveness) and the play at its highest professional levels. Both are in what might be called a postmodern period: The level of athleticism has risen so that it has either destroyed or merely camouflaged the subtleties of the games, depending on your point of view.

There is certainly more "oomph" nowadays; whether that equates to l ess "ahhh" is debatable. Sampras, with his 125-mile-per-hour serves and tomahawk overheads, plays a game with which preceding generations are not familiar, just as Tiger Woods and David Duval do in relation to Jack Nicklaus, and he to Bobby Jones before him. Why golf fans have been more accepting than tennis fans of this evolution may have something to do with the grace their heroes have shown in accepting the inevitable ascendancy of the new breed.

But such musings are perhaps best left to writers and satellite-tour players. Sampras's mock-angry responses to wayward shots make clear that part of his enjoyment of golf is that here he can make mistakes of little consequence. It is pleasurable to watch someone who has displayed such transcendent ability be humbled into mere inconsistency. It is even more pleasurable to watch him enjoy being average.

On the elevated eighth tee, which affords a stunning view--most frighteningly of its 232-yard par three--he chuckles, surveying the scene. "You know what? I have no idea where this ball is going." Is this also a part of golf's appeal, that un like tennis there is potential yet to be mined? He stares ahead, considering. "I probably will care more about getting better at golf when I stop playing tennis," he says. "But it takes time to get better, and I don't have that much time right now."

He doesn't and yet he does. At twenty-seven, Sampras has more tennis behind him than in front, a fact that has not gone unnoticed. "Seeing Jordan and Gretzky and Elway retire, it's got me thinking about the next few years, what I'll do when I'm done playing. To be honest, I just don't know what I'm going to do. I started playing tennis when I was seven years old, and at sixteen I turned pro. So I never thought of doing anything else.

"Most kids at my age are figuring out what they want to do and getting jobs and dealing with relationships," Sampras says as we ride up the ninth fairway. "I've pretty much been consumed with tennis my whole life."

Sampras pulls out a sand wedge, enters the bunker where his ball resides and digs in. The shot is a long and difficult one, to a back pin placement on a sliver of green, but he doesn't hesitate. A long, graceful swing sends the ball on a perfect arc to within tap-in range.

"This was fun," he says, shaking my hand. He then rides off toward the clubhouse, presumably for beers and BS with Gretzky. As he heads into the setting afternoon sun, casting a shadow that grows longer the farther away he gets, the image suggests a champion whose greatness will be better appreciated by posterity than by his contemporaries--a fate he's accepted but does not deserve. In that, surely, he is a golfer at heart.

The last two years seem like the quietest of Pete Sampras' great career. But if you look at them closely, they could be two of the most
defining.

Never one to command as much attention as his achievements merit, thanks to the pedestrian personality he shows the media, Sampras has spent the last two seasons in virtual hibernation, by his standards.

He is one Grand Slam title away from breaking Roy Emerson's record for career championships in the sport's top four tournaments, yet has ''only'' added two of his 12 between 1998 and 1999. This is a man who has won at least two Grand Slam championships a year four times.

He skipped the last Australian Open, missing a Grand Slam for the first time since 1992, because of exhaustion, and he dropped out of the '99 U.S. Open without playing a match due to a herniated disc in his back.

When he has played, though, Sampras has been unquestionably the best. And when he hasn't won, there has usually been a persuasive excuse.

''I've never questioned my ability in big matches or when I play against the best players in the world,'' Sampras said after thrashing
Andre Agassi 6-1, 7-5, 6-4 Sunday in the final of the ATP World Championship.

After the win in Hannover, Germany, Sampras was asked if he wanted to send a message to Agassi that he was the sport's best player.

''I don't look at it like it's a personal thing with Andre,'' Sampras said. ''It's never been about messages.''

He's wrong. In a year in men's tennis that has belonged to Agassi, Sampras upstaged him at the season-ending event. And while Agassi won two Grand Slam titles and became only the fifth man to win all four major tournaments, Sampras went a cool 5-1 against him this year and won in straight sets when the two met in the Wimbledon final.

So while Agassi finishes the season as the ATP Tour's No. 1-ranked player, he knows Sampras still has his number. Agassi was so distraught after Sampras soundly beat him Sunday that he didn't speak to the crowd, something he almost always does after playing in a final. ''There wasn't a whole lot for me to say,'' Agassi said.

Sampras' numbers against his contemporaries over the years are staggering. He's 17-11 in his career vs. Agassi, 17-2 vs. Todd Martin,
16-4 vs. Jim Courier, 10-2 vs. Yevgeny Kafelnikov, 9-4 vs. Patrick Rafter, 12-6 vs. Goran Ivanisevic, 12-7 vs. Boris Becker and 11-8 vs.
Michael Chang.

He didn't rack up many of those wins in 1999, as he played in only 14 events. By comparison, year-end No. 2 Kafelnikov played in 33,
including Davis Cup.

Despite missing two Grand Slams and several other tournaments with injuries, the 28-year-old Sampras has kept up with the newest hotshots the ATP has to offer. Sampras, who finishes this year at No. 3 in the world, was 8-2 in 1999 against the top 10 players at season's end. He was 15-4 against the same group in '98.

And when he hasn't won over the past two years, there has usually been a physical reason he wasn't at his best. His one loss to Agassi this season came during the round-robin segment of the ATP World Championship, when he could afford a setback and still qualify for the semifinals and was still working off the rust of a three-month layoff after the U.S. Open.

His U.S. Open semifinal loss to Rafter in '98 came in five sets, after he had strained a quadriceps in his left thigh in the third. The defeat
marked the first time Sampras had lost a U.S. Open semifinal in six appearances.

Yet it's clear Sampras is still as menacing a presence as ever to those on the men's circuit. After winning this past Australian Open,
Kafelnikov realized he had been bitten by chance.

''Pete, it's really a great, wonderful feeling,'' Kafelnikov told the crowd in Melbourne after beating Thomas Enqvist in the final. ''Thanks
for letting me do that.'' 

Breaking down his activity in Grand Slams - the tournaments that truly define a player in this age of convoluted rankings systems - in 1998 and 1999, Sampras stands up against anyone. He has participated in six of them and won two. Only Agassi, who won two Slam titles during his career year in '99, can match that run over that period.

The only real swoon Sampras has encountered over the past couple of years is his annual one in Paris; the French Open is the only Grand Slam he hasn't won. He has never even advanced beyond the semifinals at Roland Garros.

If Sampras can find a way through the draw as the French Open's soft clay courts deaden his hard serves, maybe many more of us will realize what he has truly achieved in his career. Then it may become clear that Sampras has won twice as many Grand Slam titles as Agassi and finished a year as the No. 1-ranked player five more times than his rival.

Sampras' personality can be as colorless as the plain white shirt and shorts he always wears during matches. If he played during the primes of John McEnroe and Jimmy Connors, we wouldn't have heard much about him, as the vibrant, outspoken pair would have swallowed up most of the public's attention.

But that doesn't mean Sampras wouldn't have won his share of matches against star players of other eras, or that he doesn't deserve to at
least be argued as the best men's player to ever step on a court.

Stephen Borelli writes about tennis for USA TODAY.com. You can send him feedback at sborelli@usatoday.com.

Pistol Pete enjoys a quick-fire victory to close the year in style

It was perhaps fitting, given that this was the last major singles tournament of the millennium, that the best player of modern times won it so emphatically. Andre Agassi has had a truly memorable year but, when it came to the crunch, Pete Sampras left him for dead to win his fifth ATP Tour championship 6-1, 7-5, 6-4. It was not a lingering death.

A match-rusty Sampras had lost their preliminary encounter on Wednesday but one round-robin victory did not make an Indian summer for Agassi. As he had in this year's Wimbledon final, Sampras explosively raised his game to crush his fellow American.

Agassi, who won this title in 1990, had displayed small but significant signs of mental weariness in Saturday's semi-final win against Russia's Yevgeny Kafelnikov during which he lost five successive games. Sampras came at him yesterday afternoon like a mighty rushing wind.

Agassi knew the hurricane was coming and no doubt had mentally boarded up anything loose accordingly, but the damage was done immediately and violently. The shutters rattled, came off their hinges and Agassi imploded. And great was his disappointment.

Presciently, perhaps forebodingly, he had warned on Wednesday  that "the guy can improve like nobody, so I have no doubt what
he is capable of". But this did not make defeat any easier.  Agassi had desperately wanted to be at his very best yesterday. He was not and Sampras went for the jugular.

That 6-2, 6-2 round-robin defeat had clearly rankled with Sampras, only the 11th time he had lost to Agassi in 27 meetings, stretching back to 1989. His pride had been hurt, not so much because he had lost but because of the severity of the defeat. "I was humiliated," he admitted yesterday.

Agassi, once more watched by Steffi Graf, was instantly under enormous pressure. He had said at the beginning of the week that, although he would finish it as the world's No1, no matter what the results, he would not feel like the No1 "unless I win against Pete".

Hence his obvious disappointment. There were no kisses to the crowd afterwards, no bows and no on-court interview. And this,
in itself, was also a disappointment.

The first set was over in less than half an hour, Agassi's serve  being broken in the second and fifth games. And so the major question was raised. Could Sampras, for whom this was only his sixth match since he pulled out of the US Open with a back injury, stay the pace?

When Agassi opened up a 3-0 lead in the second set, with  Sampras losing the rhythm on his serve, it appeared his stamina
was about to be tested to the full. But crucially Agassi squandered two further break points for a 4-0 lead.

Sampras, who pocketed just over £850,000, eventually levelled at 4-4. "When you let Andre into a match and give him some
confidence he can kind of steamroll you," said the winner. "Once I broke him back, it changed the momentum within a minute."

A desperately poor service game by Agassi at 5-5 - "I played a  real, real bad game" - virtually sealed things although there was
a brief swansong in the final set when Agassi fitfully found his form of the French and US Opens.

Of their 28 matches 13 have been finals, with Sampras holding  an 8-5 advantage. More significantly of their four Grand Slam
final encounters, Sampras has won three.

Small wonder that after losing to Sampras in the final of the  1995 US Open, Agassi never fully recovered, his psyche seemingly permanently damaged by Sampras's dominance.

This year's resurrection was obviously aided by Sampras's continued wretched form on clay - he lost in the second round at Roland Garros - and his absence from the US Open. What would Tim Henman have given for Sampras to have missed Wimbledon as well?

Quite how yesterday's defeat will affect Agassi next year must remain a glorious uncertainty, with next January's Australian
Open being the acid test.

Agassi came to this tournament determined to underline his place at the top of the world. Sampras, who finishes the year at
No3, came in order to see "how I was physically". The conclusion has to be that even a half-prepared Sampras remains
too good for Agassi, just as an out-of-form Sampras was too good for Henman at Wimbledon.

email me at: tovariche@aol.com 

Sign Guestbook 
View Guestbook